Several key documents assign responsibilities for Information Management/Information Technology (IM/IT) workforce development to agency Chief Information Officers (CIOs). The Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 (Section 5125 (c)) states that CIOs shall "assess the requirements established for agency personnel regarding knowledge and skill in information resources management" and, to rectify any deficiencies in meeting those requirements, will "develop strategies and specific plans for hiring, training, and professional development." The Office of Management and Budget Circular A-130 (section 9, Assignment of Responsibilities) states that CIOs will "develop "a well-trained corps of information resource professionals." These responsibilities are reiterated in the recent reissuance of Department of Defense Directive 8001.1, which states that CIOs will "acquire, develop and retain a well-trained core of highly qualified information resource management and information assurance professionals who can accept, anticipate, and generate the changes that IT will enable." This guidance has led the Department of the Navy (DON) CIO to make a substantial commitment to competency development and management of the IM/IT workforce.
Anticipating Tomorrow's Competency Requirements
In today's DON, military success across the spectrum of Navy and Marine Corps missions relies on exploiting information to maximize the effectiveness of every individual and every organization. The DON needs a corps of knowledge workers—educated, trained, and motivated military, civilians and contractors to develop and maintain its technological edge.
The DON IM/IT leadership directly addressed this requirement in the FY 2002 DON IM/IT Strategic Plan, calling for the Navy and Marine Corps to "build IM/IT competencies to shape the workforce of the future." The DON CIO took specific action to achieve this goal by establishing a cross-functional, cross-organizational team — the IM/IT Workforce Integrated Process Team (IPT) — chartered to define a workforce strategy and conduct IM/IT workforce planning analyses to facilitate more efficient and accurate alignment of the IM/IT workforce to meet the DON's organizational goals, commitments and priorities.
Two working groups — the Civilian Working Group and the Military Working Group — concurrently developed specific workforce analyses to examine the military and civilian elements of the workforce. The reports from these two working groups present the results of the DON CIO's first attempts to develop an IM/IT workforce planning process. The results that can be matured and institutionalized to support the IM/IT community and shape it to meet the needs of future. While the first efforts focused on workforce planning, it quickly became clear that to fully support the IM/IT workforce community, a broader, more comprehensive view of the IM/IT workforce was required. This direction was reinforced for the civilian workforce by two studies: the National Academy of Public Administration's report "The Transforming Power of Information Technology" and the Vice Chief of Naval Operations Task Force on Civilian Personnel. Both reports validated the issues the DON CIO Workforce IPT had noted, and recommended the creation of "Community Leaders" for key occupational and career communities.
DON IM/IT Community Leadership
Given the lead the DON CIO had has already taken with respect to the IM/IT workforce planning, the role of the Department's community leader is a natural progression.. While both Navy and Marine Corps military personnel have had the benefit of community management, this has not been the case for civilian personnel. The creation of Navy and Marine Corps civilian community leaders will provide additional individual and service community benefits that will contribute to workforce development.
What is a community? And what does a community leader do? A community is defin